Jerry Jones always should have fired Tom Landry, and appeased Jimmy Johnson | Opinion
On the same day Jerry Jones blamed himself for the breakup of his marriage with Jimmy Johnson, a former Dallas Cowboys great cleared Jerry for something for which he should never have been blamed.
You can blame the 78-year-old Jones for much about the state of the Dallas Cowboys, but how he treated Tom Landry should never have been on the list.
In fact, how Jerry Jones treated Tom Landry should go down as one of the his most honorable acts in his ownership of the Dallas Cowboys
On Wednesday, Dallas Cowboys legends Drew Pearson and Roger Staubach got together at the Heritage Auction house in Irving to help promote the auction of the new non-fungible token (NFT), the Hail Mary pass.
It is amazing that the most famous play in Cowboys’ history was mostly luck, and it continues to endure almost 50 years later.
Pearson has never been one to run from his opinions, and he firmly believes that Jerry should never have been blamed for his decision to fire Landry in 1989.
It was merely a coincidence that while Jerry was kicking to the media in Oxnard for how he let Jimmy Johnson leave, Drew Pearson happened to be defending the Cowboys’ owner’s once controversial firing of Tom Landry.
“I was one of the guys, and maybe the only guy, that promoted [Jones] when he bought the team,” Pearson said. “I was hired to do a TV show here in town, and I was the first one to come out and speak against all of the negative feedback that Jerry was getting for letting Coach Landry go.”
The day after Jerry bought the team from Bum Bright, Jones and then team president Tex Schramm flew to visit with Landry and meet face-to-face at his house in Austin.
Jerry informed Landry that he was no longer the head coach of the Cowboys, and that he would be replaced by the head coach from the University of Miami, Jimmy Johnson.
Jones would later say the meeting was awkward and, “It’s the most inadequate I’ve ever been in my life. If you had graded my conversation, I would have gotten an F.”
He received multiple death threats over the phone.
Jerry has earned plenty of Fs as a GM, but he should have always received an A for this one. There is no good way to breakup other than face-to-face, and with candor.
Then NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle likened the announcement to the death of Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi.
Even as the Cowboys became the team of the ‘90s, and won three Super Bowls, there were generations of Cowboys fans who could not forgive Jerry for firing Landry.
This is despite the fact that Schramm brought in the likes of Paul Hackett and Marty Schottenheimer with the idea that one day one of them would replace Landry, years before Jerry bought the team.
But Landry would not quit.
When Jerry bought the team, Landry was still the coach after a 3-13 season, and three consecutive losing years.
“It should not have been his responsibility to fire Coach Landry or let him go,” Pearson said. “Bum Bright was the owner at that time. Bum Bright should have told Coach Landry what was going on.
“If he had had any respect for Coach Landry, he would have let Coach Landry know, and Coach Landry would have understood because he knows the game. He knows how it is. He cut players a lot colder than he got cut, you know?
“I’ve always said Bum Bright was responsible for letting Coach Landry go, but he threw that in Jerry Jones’ lap and Jerry did the best he could with the situation like that.”
Jerry told reporters years later that Bright offered him the chance to do just that, but Jerry refused.
Pearson is right. Landry, who died in 2000, simply could never accept that he was no different than a player and, ultimately, replaceable.
Jerry is now in his third decade of owning the Dallas Cowboys, and it’s been so long since his team won (or reached) a Super Bowl that he has earned all of the criticism for the state of the franchise.
The decision to fire Tom Landry, and that he did it face-to-face, was Jerry at his best.
And the fact that he could not figure out a way to keep Jimmy Johnson as his head coach during their dynasty run was Jerry at his worst.
This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 5:33 PM.
